New Print & Ebooks at Langsdale!

Did you know that Langsdale Library offers a list of all of our newest materials? We do! Each month we'll post an update letting you know about a few select titles, but there are far too many to mention here so be sure to check out our comprehensive online list. There is an RSS feed to the list, so you can subscribe and be updated when new materials get listed each month.

New Materials at Langsdale:

Check It Out!

"'Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry... This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can't do when dealing with free speech controversies'--Book jacket." Check It Out! "The twin crises of immigration and mass migration brought new urgency to the balance of power between progressive, humanitarian groups and their populist opponents. In the United States and many European countries, the outcome of this struggle is uncertain, with a high chance that the public will elect more politicians who support an agenda of nativism and privatization. The Antiegalitarian Mutation makes a forceful case that those seeking to limit citizenship and participation, political or otherwise, have co-opted democracy." Check It Out! "How much sex are people really having? How many Americans are actually racist? Is America experiencing a hidden back-alley abortion crisis? Can you game the stock market? Does violent entertainment increase the rate of violent crime? Do parents treat sons differently from daughters? How many people actually read the books they buy? In this work, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, a Harvard-trained economist, former Google data scientist, and New York Times writer, argues that much of what we thought about people has been dead wrong. The reason? People lie, to friends, lovers, doctors, surveys -- and themselves. However, we no longer need to rely on what people tell us. New data from the internet -- the traces of information that billions of people leave on Google, social media, dating, and even pornography sites -- finally reveals the truth. " These are just a few of the many new books, movies, and games at your Langsdale Library. To see the complete listing of new materials check out our list right here! If you want to receive updates when new materials get listed each month, you can subscribe to the list through the RSS feed.

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Google Books Case

Just this past Monday, April 18, the Supreme Court decided not to take up the case of a long-running lawsuit against Google Books.  The court's decision is a win for Google, bringing an end to a decade-long court battle.  The Google Books project makes digital scans of millions of books available to the world.  In order to build such an impressive and (of course!) searchable digital library, Google partnered with major libraries, including those of the University of Michigan, Columbia University, and Harvard University, to scan their entire book collections. 

Back in 2005, the Authors’ Guild sued Google over its Google Books project.  The Authors’ Guild claimed that Google infringed on copyright by its wholescale scanning of complete books, done without the permission of authors or publishers.  The lawsuit has taken many twists and turns over the past decade but, again and again, the courts found in favor of Google, declaring Google Books to be both a “fair use” of the texts in question, as well as a transformative use.  Google’s book-scanning endeavor is seen as transformative because, for the first time ever, it allows for the full-text searching and text-mining of millions of works.  Now that the Supreme Court has declined the Google Books case, Google Books fans can rest easy, knowing that the fate of this revolutionary project no longer stands at the mercy of a judge.

Google Wins Again!

So, Google won another round in the fair use battle, now what? Google has been forging the way for the digitization of books for just over a decade now, with little victory steps along the way as they have climbed the ladder of the court system. The Authors Guild has stated that the next stop will be the Supreme Court. Odds are they will face another loss. While this victory may come as little surprise since Google won the initial case against the Authors Guild in 2013 in a US Circuit Court in New York, the victories for HathiTrust when they won their fair use trial in 2012 and the appeal last year only helped to strengthen Google’s case.

What does this mean for libraries? Libraries now have the backing of the courts as well as a clearer definition of what constitutes fair use. Does this mean that they will be more willing to forge ahead, broadening their own digital access to books and other materials? Google’s fight has helped libraries avoid or minimize legal and financial risks by paving the way, thus opening up a whole new direction for digital libraries. Will libraries now be able to digitize their collections for the sake of preservation without worry of copyright infringement? Will they be able to then offer those digital collections for checkout, provided they retain a physical copy?

Perhaps Google’s win raises more questions, but with the support of the legal system, opportunities for digitization have increased for libraries. And, Judge Leval’s statement: “While authors are undoubtedly important intended beneficiaries of copyright, the ultimate, primary intended beneficiary is the public”, certainly is in line with the mission of libraries in general.

For more information see the article in The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/what-the-google-books-victory-means-for-readers-and-libraries/411910/

Searching for the Truth

When you need to fact-check information, there's a lot of options:

• Snopes investigates rumors like "Nabisco is producing Fried Chicken Oreos"(false, by the way)
• LazyTruth is an app you can use to debunk stories in chain emails
• FactCheck.org uncovers claims related to public policy and politics
• PolitiFact is an independent website that checks claims made by politicians using their "Truth-O-Meter" (and tracks President Obama's campaign promises using their "Obameter")

But when looking up information on a topic, or trying to learn more about an issue, most people turn to Google as the primary place to get information. Google ranks its search results using an algorithm that looks at metadata (including keywords), popularity, and, increasingly, personalized information gleaned from your search habits and history. How does Google know a website is popular? It looks to see how many other pages link to it, and counts each link as vote of recommendation for that website. The more times other websites link to a certain page, the more that website page will move to the top of your Google search results.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

The problem: Those popular websites don't always have correct information. As rumors spread, people often link to websites that support their claims, sometimes cherry-picking pages that only show one side of the story. A research team at Google is working on modifying that popularity model to "measure the trustworthiness of a page, rather than its reputation across the web." According to an article in The New Scientist, this proposed algorithm "counts the number of incorrect facts within a page" instead of counting the number of incoming links.

In order for Google to determine what is and isn't a fact, it has a vast Knowledge Vault that contains billions of pieces of information called triples, which it determines to be accurate information. If Google succeeds at being able to rank search results by accuracy (certainly, a useful service) this means we're relying on technology, a company, an algorithm to tell us what is true and false, taking away our ability to think critically about the information we find, and putting an awful lot of trust in Google. Who will fact-check Google?

Google enters e-book market

We've had several postings about e-books this semester, trying to get a sense of user interest. In that vein of discussion, it seems that Google may be getting into the e-book market. Check out this Wall Street Journal article on Google's plans.

Going Farther with Google Maps

Hi! I’m Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction Librarians at Langsdale Library. I joined UB in August this year, and have been enjoying my work here very much. You may have seen me at the reference desk, in your class offering library instruction, riding my bicycle to campus, or playing indoor soccer in the Recreation and Wellness Center. If you see me, say hi! I’d love to get to know you.

A few weeks ago, I taught a class how to use Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) to build a collaborative class map. Google Maps is a map service you can view on an internet browser, and is also one of my favorite websites. As it turns out, a lot of the information we use every day is place-specific. In other words, new information either comes from one geographic place, or information we already have is only useful in one place. Google Maps is one of the best resources I can think of for getting to (and using) place-related information.

Some of the things you can do with Google Maps include:

• Get driving, walking, cycling, or public transit directions from one place to another. You can even choose between different recommended routes or click on "traffic" to see current travel conditions.
• Use "search nearby" to find businesses near an address. I use this when looking for food by cuisine (pizza, Chinese food, etc) or for businesses I need (Kinkos, Post Office, etc).
• Zoom to the street-level photograph of an address, to see what an unfamiliar place looks like from the ground.
• Search for user-submitted photos and videos near an address by clicking on the "more" button and selecting those options.
• Look up Wikipedia articles that relate to specific places the map using the "more" button.
• Search for a new home or apartment using the "real estate" option under the "more" button.
• Log in to create your own maps and share them with friends
• And a whole lot more!

For video tutorials on how to use Google Maps to do these things (and more!) visit http://maps.google.com/intl/en/help/maps/tour/. You can also "Ask a Librarian" if you want one of the Langsdale librarians to assist you in your place-related information needs.

Google Universal Search Launched Today

From Compiler: Wired Blogs:

Google To Add Embedded Videos to Default Search Results

We're here at Google's Searchology event in Mountain View. Google's Marissa Mayer has announced that the company is launching a new, integrated search experience Wednesday called Universal Search.

This means no more searching for videos, images or web results independently. Google will now combine search results for everything -- books, news, images and video -- onto default search result pages. Universal Search will re-draw Google's default search results pages as we know them, but the coolest development is that YouTube and Google Video players will now be embedded within search results.

Read the rest of the article: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/05/google_to_add_e.html

Out of curiosity, I tried a search for "Bob Barker," the soon-to-be-retired game show host. In the old Google, if you wanted to find an image of Bob Barker you had to click on the Image link above the search box and then type his name; if you wanted video of Barker telling contestants to "Come on down," that was a new search.

In the new Google, you only have to search once and then you can pull up the type of results you want. You still get the default Web results, but you can click on one of the menu options in the upper left-hand corner for images, video, news, and even maps (where Bob Barker's production offices popped up). There is also a pull-down menu with other results options, including Google Scholar; that's where I found a 1996 article from The American Economic Review entitled, "The Price is Right, But are the Bids? An Investigation of Rational Decision Theory" (and Google Scholar tells me the full text is available at UB in Business Source Premier).

While the new Google Universal Search may take some getting used to, it should make searching a lot easier.

Do you like the new Google? Give it a try and let us know what you think.

More on Universal Search from Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/behind-scenes-with-universal-search.html

The Official Google Press Release: http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/pressrel/universalsearch_20070516.html